Read, Ride, and Roam with me through Retirement!

 Anyone who's known me for more than the past five years knows that I've been planning to get out of teaching for a long time, so I can focus all my time and attention on my writing. Ideally, I had wanted to stop teaching four years ago after my daughter graduated, but for various reasons (most of them financial ones), I decided to keep teaching until I hit the thirty-year mark.

This year was my thirtieth year, so I'm leaving teaching to write, to ride, and to roam full time. I'll also read and paint a lot, too. 

If you haven't yet visited my author website, please do. You can find it at tammymarshallauthor.wordpress.com if the following link doesn't work.

Tammy Marshall – My books, blogs, columns, poems, and other writings. Scroll down for some links. Click on the tabs at the top of this page to learn more about me.

On that site, you can see my current books, synopses of books I'm writing and planning to release, a few of my columns, links to my two blogs, a page announcing my readings and appearances, some photos, and you can even contact me from the website.

While, financially, this still isn't the most opportune time for me to give up teaching, on a personal level, I've already waited far too long. All I've ever wanted to be was a writer. I can't keep putting my own dream on the back burner because, as we all know, life is far too short.

In the past few years, I've lost far too many wonderful people. Their deaths have been painful, painful reminders that while I may not be able to afford monetary luxuries by giving up my job, I REALLY can't afford to keep losing days that I could be spent writing. I want to honor their memories by dedicating every day to achieving more of my goals.

Amy Vojtech Beran was my best friend since college, and she was a huge supporter of my writing. She died almost three years ago from cancer. She was only 50. My second book is dedicated to her memory. I keep her photos on my desks to cheer me because her smile is lovely, but I so miss my friend. I leave a painted rock every time I visit her grave in Fremont.

Nate Metschke, the best band teacher ever, died at the age of 40. He and I were birthday buddies of a sort. His was September 11, and mine is September 13. His 40th and my 50th sucked, so we had made a promise to do something fun and memorable for his 41st and my 51st. He never made it that far. He died on the operating table trying to kick cancer's ass. A bright and shining light went out of my workdays after he died, and it's just never been the same. 

Trever Erickson, the middle son of my boyfriend, Kim, died two years ago at age 32. He was a goofy, fun-loving, tortured soul whose PTSD got the best of him. There is a memorial in my front yard to him, and I think of him often and miss him dearly. Kim, his other two sons, Trever's wife Jet, I, and others are doing things to keep Trever's legacy going, but nothing can ever replace him.

Paul Filsinger, my beloved and amazing uncle, died last October from complications from covid. He was only 60, and he was the most gifted photographer ever. He gave me the photo that graces the cover of my second book, and I had so hoped to collaborate with him on future book covers. I miss everything about him, but I especially miss the joy he brought to my life with every visit. 

Karen Filsinger Hahlbeck, my aunt and sister to Paul, died only days after Paul. She was a hoot and a half, and she loved to read. While she reached an older age, the way in which she died and the timing of it on the heels of her baby brother's death were a blows that still resonate.

Recently, I've lost two former students, and anytime I lose a former student, it's a giant punch in the gut for many reasons. Sadly, I've lost count of how many former students have died. I've taught for thirty years, so it's bound to happen, of course, but it's never okay. A few have died so tragically that I have nightmares. Sydney Loofe's death was the most horrific. She was such a sweet kid, and she deserved a long and wonderful life. May her killers rot in hell.

There are other losses that cut almost as deep as death.

Silvia Realpozo Sanchez, my dear friend from Mexico, got violently ill last fall, and her kidneys died. She had to cut short her college education and return to Mexico where she is on dialysis three times a week, and she's still very ill. I miss her greatly, and I worry all the time about her.

For many reasons, it's long overdue that I really focus on my writing as a full-time commitment instead of something I try to sneak in during weekends, over the summer, and on a few evenings. I need the continuity of a daily flow of writing if I'm ever really going to become the writer I want to be. Whether I ever achieve fame and fortune with my writing is completely secondary to my primary goal -- I simply want to be a writer. Every day. I want my career to be WRITER instead of teacher. I owe it to myself.

Read With Me! 2020 Hindsight in Reading.

 2020 was a crappy, crappy year. I had a number of medical issues that took me to many check ups for many reasons culminating in a final biggie on December 29th when I had my first cataract eye surgery -- second one is slated for mid-February. Additionally, two of my very favorite people suffered greatly. My uncle Paul Filsinger, who you can read all about in my other blog of shtickthis.blogspot.com, passed away from covid-19 on October 1st, and my dear friend, Silvia, who had been attending college here suddenly got sick in early November and never recovered because her kidneys failed her. She has since returned to Mexico where she undergoes dialysis three times a week, and we're waiting and hoping she'll be a candidate for a transplant down the road. Add to this the pall that covid-19 brought to everything, and it's no wonder I didn't manage to read as much as I normally do in a year. Since having the first eye surgery, I have been able to read easier and more often, and I know that once both eyes have been done, I will (hopefully) have 20/20 vision again (with glasses still, though) for the first time in years.

The saying that hindsight is 20/20 may, ironically, apply best to the crappy year of 2020, but I am glad it's behind us. As I look back over the few books I did manage to read in 2020, I thought I'd share here what they were as well as the comments and number of stars (out of 5) I recorded about each in my reading journal.

The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor.  ****  Enjoyable but very slow. Not much really happens. Mostly it's a character study of Hugh Kennedy, the narrator, a 50+-year-old Catholic priest who briefly reconnects with the Carmody family through the old father, Charlie. John Carmody, his boyhood friend and fellow priest, dies suddenly at the end. 640 pages long. Pulitzer Prize winner in fiction for 1962.

All the Gallant Men: The first Memoir by a USS Arizona Survivor by Donald Stratton with Ken Gire.  ***** Amazing book! The One Book One Nebraska book choice for 2020. I chose it for my February column, too, and we're reading it for one of my book clubs. 

I cried 3 times reading it and spent today reading most of it. Very well-written and researched. Stratton is originally from Red Cloud and went into the Navy right after college. Prior to reading this book, I really didn't understand what had happened on that ship and to the over 1,000 who died on it in a matter of seconds. It's a well-balanced story with explanations about what happened at Hiroshima also. Currently, he is 98 years old and one of 2 or 3 remaining survivors from the USS Arizona. he lives in Colorado Springs but plans to be buried at Red Cloud. He prefers not to be interred in the Arizona the way others have chosen to be. (He passed away only days before my column ran.)

How to Deal by Sarah Dessen  ***

Long, yet easy read. Nothing too memorable. It's two books in one actually, and they were made into a movie by the same name starring Mandy Moore. I haven't seen it, though, and I probably won't.

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides.  ***

I read some. Put it down. Came back to it later. Read some more. Put it down. Repeat. Repeat.

I don't remember when I actually began reading it. Was so long ago really. Overall, I didn't much like it. Disappointed in Madeleine for being so dumb (while also being so smart -- something to do with her character being written by a male author??? Maybe, maybe not.) as to marry a deeply depressed guy. Yet I was glad at the end when she leaves on her own to actually do something with her life.

Blue Moon by Lee Child.  **

The 25th Jack Reacher book. I read that Child is turning over the writing of the Reacher books to his brother but also that he had originally planned to kill off the character. He really should have done the latter.

This book was simply Jack Reacher killing every single bad guy -- like many many many of them. No heart in it at all. Be done with the series, I say.

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware.  ***

Read this for book club. So-so. Definitely not much of a thriller. Why can a book like this find its publishing home while mine can't? Women and their pettiness is what it's about. Such a tired stereotypical cliche about women. As is the unreliable first person narrator. It's become the standard, unfortunately. I don't much care to read any more of these types of books. 

Commonwealth by Ann Patchett.  ***

Stopped reading midway and didn't get back to it for a while, but getting back into the story was easy, and I really enjoyed the 2nd half of it. The book club wasn't fond of it, but I liked it, and the book club members and I often have very different tastes where books are concerned. 

I've been to Patchett's Parnassus bookstore in Nashville and hope to meet her someday. Unfortunately, the day I was there I missed her by about an hour. Ugh. Next time. Fingers crossed.

Writing Toward Home: Tales and Lessons to Find Your Way by Georgia Heard. *****

Not sure why I'd never read this before or where I even got it. Found it on my writers' advice shelf. Enjoyed her useful suggestions, her wisdom, and the many times she reflected my own views and thoughts.

Here's one: "I can write anywhere as long as I have light, a place to put my feet up, and a cup of tea . . . by my side -- in a place that feels like it has some life in it, with no television set or flourescent lights glaring." (p. 17)

News of the World by Paulette Jiles. ****

An old man who travels Civil War era Texas reading newspaper pieces to illiterate crowds of people is given the task of returning a ten-year-old German girl to her uncle and aunt after she's spent 4 years as a captive of the Kiowa, the only family she remembers even though they murdered her real parents and her little sister. He does return her, but later he takes her away because she's being mistreated and worked like a dog. He raises her with love and treats her well until she's of age to marry and live her own life. Pretty good read with a lot of true stuff included.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. ****

My column choice for March 2020. Strange but good book. Long -- 601 pages. Deep -- philosophically and religiously.

Steinbeck manages to paint an evil person with goodness that makes us still pity the evil person, yet he also seems to believe like I do that some people are simply born evil.

Unless by Carol Shields. *****

Very good and very relatable for me as a woman who often feels overlooked simply because I am a woman, and especially with my writing. Also, it's relatable because Reta (the protagonist) is left feeling completely bereft and unsure how to navigate the challenge of dealing with an adult child's misery (as most parents have to face at some time). 

This line hit me hard since I have a daughter who is now an adult: "I recognized that I was one of those mothers who has difficulty with her child's becoming a woman." Yeah, that's definitely me, too.

I loved Shields' unique take on chapter titles where each is a preposition like the title word. One is titled "Notwithstanding," another is "Thus," and so on.

The Library Book by Susan Orlean. *****

It's about the 1986 fire in L.A.'s Central Library, but really it's a paean to libraries everywhere. That library was designed by the same architect who designed the Nebraska State Capitol even though he didn't live to see it finished like he did the capitol. It looks a lot like the lower part of the capitol, too.

This was my column choice for April 2020. Afterwards, I contacted Orleans via email and included a copy of my column piece, and she wrote back to me soon after to express her appreciation. She's a very nice woman.

The Republic of Love by Carol Shields.  ***

One of her earlier books. I've had it on my shelf since 2016 when Sam and I visited KU and I bought it in a bookstore in downtown Lawrence. Decided to read the other Shields' books I have after finally reading Unless and loving it. I like her style, and this was a sweet love story in the midst of other common, yet odd, life choices. Fay's pursuit of mermaid lore was weird yet interesting, too. 

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  **

Really weird and not for me. A few good sentences and relatable content, but the "unstuck in time" and outer space being exhibited on display on a different planet was just too bizarre for my liking.

At least it was short and easy to read.

"So it goes." 

(I actually messaged the former student who had recommended this book to me and simply asked him -- WHY???)

Larry's Party by Carol Shields.  ****

I really enjoy her style of writing. I didn't like her overuse of the word "convivial" throughout her books, but I enjoy everything else. 

Unique characters with interesting jobs and passions. Larry's is hedge mazes. I found that to be intriguing. My favorite part was the 1983 section titled "Larry's Words." This contains a great distinction between the word maze and the word labyrinth.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.  ****

Short stories -- she likes to write them; after all her DEBUT collection won the damn Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, so why not stick to what you're good at. 

Beautifully written yet quite depressing actually. She's definitely not a happy-ending writer. Realistic. I loved the Italy parts as well as the Boston and Cambridge bits. It helps so much when you've been to the places you read about, and this makes me really want to return to Italy.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday.  ***

I liked his style and enjoyed the book, but I thought it would be funnier, or even more touching. I wanted a light read. This one plodded too much at times.

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain by Bill Bryson.  ****

I learned of many places I'd like to see in the UK someday. 

I wouldn't have read this at all if I hadn't first read his famous A Walk in the Woods. That one is better overall, but this one appeals to the overseas wanderer in me.

Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor.  ****

June 2020 column choice. Pulitzer winner. A very hard read. So much suffering and wasteful death in this "stockade prison" camp during the Civil War in Georgia. Men just wasted away due to the foul "living" conditions, lack of food, no clean water, no shelter, etc.! Just horrible.

A fictional book about a very real place and very real people. 

Heartrendingly sad.

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri.  ***

She has a unique style, but her stories are all a bit depressing. I'm sure they are lauded because they don't sugar coat things, but sometimes it's nice to read something more uplifting. I think I've had my fill of her works for now.

Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.  ****

LOVED his focus on solitude! I can so totally relate. The only way I ever get productive writing done is in complete solitude. Plus, I wrote a poem called "Solitude" years ago, and I'm always happy to find other authors (renowned ones especially) who agree with my opinion about it.

(I recorded many quotes in a special quote journal I keep.) Here is one: "Perhaps you will discover that you are called to be an artist. Then take that destiny upon yourself, and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking what reward might come from outside."

The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton.  ****

Reread this in preparation for using it with the 8th graders in English class. I didn't remember much of it even though I'd read it many years ago. It's still a good and easy (meaning quick) read with solid messages for the young adult age group. 

The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie.  ***

She packs A LOT of characters into a very short book. I wish I could come up with such a simple yet convoluted plot.

The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher.  *****

I often heard that this was a good book. Boy, is it ever! Soothed my wounded soul a bit to find a kindred spirit in Penelope Keeling, the main gal, whose husband was worthless. 

It's beautifully written, and I enjoyed it immensely. This one needs to be read again and savored.

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.  ****

Pulitzer winner and column choice for August 2020. 

Sad ending, like life I suppose. Very descriptive. I could really see and feel it all.

I adored the father, Ezra "Penny" Baxter, and his wisdom.

Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout.  ***

My column choice for September, but I regret it because I didn't enjoy this one as much as I did Olive Kitteridge.

There's a very strange underage sexual thing in this one that I didn't like. 

A House for Mr. Biswas by V. S. Naipaul.  *

Yep, one star. I thought this would be better since it shows up on list after list of must-read books. I never got into it, nor really cared to. I did finish it, but I wouldn't if I could do my time over.

Loving Frank by Nancy Horan.  ****

Very good book about real people with a very tragic ending. This is a fictionalized account of a very real romance and a very real tragedy. I loved everything about this book and researched the events of the tragedy that took place at Frank Lloyd Wright's Wisconsin home.

What an amazing first novel.

If you've read this far, congratulations. I did also "read" two audio books on a long drive this summer with my daughter. They were both good and bear mentioning: The Other Einstein by Marie Benedict and A Long Petal to the Sea by Isabel Allende. I most enjoyed the Allende one with its interweaving of locales from pre-Franco Spain to pre-Pinochet Chile. I also reread The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway with my high school juniors. I really like that book, and it's short enough to easily read over and over again, even in a mere afternoon.

I've already managed to read three books in 2021 with a fourth nearing completion. My goal, as it is every year, is to read at least 50 books. Last year, I barely surpassed 30. That is unacceptable to me. If 2020 taught me anything beyond the biggies of not taking anything for granted, it taught me to reexamine what I spend my precious time reading. I have to be more willing to walk away from books that I don't like. There are far too many good ones out there just begging to be read and enjoyed.

Please visit my website (tammymarshall.wordpress.com) to view some of my columns about past books as well as links to this blog and my other one. 

Happy reading!

Roam With Me! Tybee Island, Georgia, June 2020

During the isolation time of late March,  April and May, I started writing a new novel. The idea for it had been bouncing around in my head for a few years. I have multiple story ideas every single day, and, when possible, I write a few down from time to time because I think they are good and don't want to forget them. Inevitably, most of the ideas remain simply that -- ideas -- because I'd need a million lifetimes to write stories about every idea I have; however, a few of my ideas take up residence in my mind and send me a steady stream of reminders that it's time to sit down and try to make a story out of them. So, with plenty of writing time on my hands, I did just that, every single day for two or more hours each morning until the end of May. I still haven't completed the story because it's doing what most of my stories do -- leading me astray for a while -- but I have over 300 handwritten pages completed along with a stack of note cards full of things to fix or add or change, etc. So, what does all of this have to do with Tybee Island? Well, I wanted the story to take place on the east coast in a coastal town. I wanted it to be in North Carolina, South Carolina or Georgia. After some map perusal and web searches, I decided that Tybee Island looked like the perfect place, so that's where my new novel is set.

As I wrote, I often used the internet to look at photos of the island and the community, and I searched for little snippets to make it feel real. However, until I actually see and experience a place, I feel like I'm writing blindly about it, and even though I'm writing fiction, I still want the place to be real. In my first novel, "The Clearwater House," anyone from Clearwater, Nebraska, or even from rural Northeast Nebraska knows that the setting is very real even though the story is made up. While my inability to visit a place won't keep me from including that place if I feel it's the best place for my characters to be (Georgia visits Hawaii and Alaska -- two places I haven't yet been -- in "State of Georgia . . . and Other Writings"), I do believe that gaining a personal perspective makes for a better story. So, with a desire to actually see Tybee, I added a couple of days to my recent Tennessee visit, and we drove down to Tybee Island.

Since we arrived in late June on a Sunday, it was very hot and humid as well as packed with day trippers from Savannah, but by the next day, the island was much less packed even though it was still incredibly hot and humid. We stayed at a small inn -- a converted house -- called 17th Street Inn only a block from the beach and one of the handy boardwalks for crossing the sand dune. We had the first floor room on the left which contained a king-sized bed, a small bathroom with shower and a full kitchen. The porch stayed shaded all day and made for enjoyable evening sitting. 

The beach is lovely, expansive and quite clean. It stretches the full eastern side of the island and across the north side, too. Even though there were many people on the beach when we first arrived, there was still plenty of beach and ocean to go around, and when I stayed to watch the sunset and rose early for the sunrise, the beach and ocean in all their glory were mostly mine. I'll show you a photo with the late-afternoon Sunday crowd and a couple from late Monday and sunrise on Tuesday. 

Beautiful, isn't it? The water was just cool enough to take away the heat from our skin after sunbathing a bit. The waves were constant and only had enough force to throw me off my feet once when I wasn't paying attention. Otherwise, we just bobbed up and down with them. The sand was soft and full of tiny shells above the tide line, and it was hard-packed and great for walking in a wide swath that ran along the waterline.

Tybee Island has a couple trademark constructions. One is its lighthouse and the other is its pavilion and pier. We drove by the lighthouse but didn't go in it because tickets had to be purchased online in advance, and we simply lacked the time. Also, it was really hot and probably not the best time to be climbing stairs in a tall lighthouse. The pier and pavilion, though, we definitely walked on because I'd already included them in my novel-in-progress, so I really needed to see them up close. We also walked under the pier, so here are some photos from above and below as well as the lighthouse.

      

 

There are a couple places that offer dolphin excursions. We went to Captain Derek's, hoping to get lucky and still be able to get a ticket at the last minute. We managed to snag the last two tickets for the day on the 2:00 p.m. excursion. The boat took us out onto the north side of the island where dolphins are prevalent in the shallower water. We saw many, and it was well worth the 15 dollar per person price. Not only did we see a lot of dolphins, but the young narrator, a guy named Damian, regaled us with a litany of Dad-style dolphin jokes to help pass the time along with the dolphin-related educational information he shared. Example: What's a dolphin's favorite country? Finland! How are a piano and a fish different? You can't "tuna" fish! And many others. I loved them all because they reminded me of my wonderful co-worker, Nate Metschke, who passed away for too young a year and a half ago. He taught band and loved to tell "punny" jokes. Anyway, the dolphin excursion was fun, and I'd recommend it to anyone going to Tybee.

One of the main things I wanted to see for myself was how the houses looked as well as get a feel for the town. The houses vary from one story to two, so that fit in perfectly with the two main houses in my story, and I learned that Sandra Bullock's Tybee Island house is for sale -- you can find it on realtor.com if you look for the 3.5 million dollar house on the northern part of the island. If anyone reading this would like to find about thirty more people, we could all go in together and buy it! Ha ha. 

Like any beautiful place I visit, I would really like to return and spend a week or more on the island to soak in even more of the local flavor, but I managed to get a pretty solid feel for the town during my short stay. Overall, the food was good. I'm not a fan of seafood, so I can't speak to that particular fare, but the chicken and other sandwiches I ate while I was there was good, and I was especially happy to find that Diet Coke was served everywhere. I would, though, like to recommend the bar Tybee Time where you should go in and ask Rachel, a very nice bartender, to serve you one of their amazing rum/everclear/who-knows-really-what-kind-of-alcohol-infused slushies. I had a mango one, and it was super yummy and super cooling on a hot evening.

I'll just leave you with a few more beautiful beach shots because the beach and the ocean are the real reasons for visiting and living on Tybee Island.

Now, I'd better get back to writing that novel!

Roam With Me! Johnson City, TN, June 2020

A year ago, I briefly visited the areas of Johnson City and Gray, Tennessee, while on a retirement scouting trip with my boyfriend to Nashville and Asheville (NC). We were only in the area for a couple hours, but we really liked what we saw. My daughter is considering a few colleges to complete her studies to become a paleontologist, and ETSU in Johnson City has one of the premiere departments due to the 2000 discovery of a large fossil site at Gray, which is only a few miles from Johnson City. So, I once again drove to Johnson City -- this time for an extended visit with my daughter.

ETSU was still closed for official tours, but you can easily walk all over the campus because it's not that large, so she was able to get a feel for the college even without a representative giving us a tour.

Our main objective was for her to get a good glimpse of the Gray Fossil Site because if she chooses to apply and gets accepted at ETSU, then she will end up spending some of her time working at the site. She contacted Dr. Steven Wallace, a professor at the university and the original director of the site when it first opened. He was kind enough to meet us and give her a thorough tour along with ample scientific explanations that went over my head but that she firmly grasped. He also took us into the expansive and amazing upstairs lab where we met the main preparator, Shawn Haugrud, who wowed her even more with lots of information. I was most intrigued to learn that since the soil of the dig site is clay, all the fossils there have been crushed into thousands of pieces that then have to be reassembled much like a very complicated 3D puzzle that may or may not contain all the necessary pieces. They are doing some cutting-edge things at Gray, and I know my daughter would both benefit from working there and be beneficial to the cause because she's very diligent with her work and already has a lot of experience working with tiny fossil fragments. 

   

        The dig site itself is behind the building and isn't much to see yet because they estimate that they've only uncovered about 1% of what is there. In that 1%, though, they've found a staggering number of fossils, so there is work to be had at this one site for years and years and years and for many current and up-and-coming paleontologists. 

Naturally, I can't travel anywhere new without checking out the local bookstores. I hit up Book Lover's Warehouse, Mr. K's Used Books, and Moody Books. The latter has been around for almost 50 years and specializes in theological books for the most part. I didn't really find anything to my liking there, but I enjoyed seeing it. I most enjoyed Book Lover's Warehouse, and I would love to return to spend a full day there. Of course, I returned with some books to add to my home library. I also stopped at the Barnes and Noble to acquire the newest Pulitzer winner for fiction.

     

Another place that is a must-visit for me is the local Harley-Davidson store. I stopped in and bought myself a much-needed full-face helmet from an exceptionally friendly and knowledgeable woman named Paige who has worked in the Johnson City store for 21 years. She was extremely patient with me as I tried out all the gizmos on the helmet, and she made sure that I was satisfied with the fit. According to helmet measurements, my head is a small, which I find so strange since everything else on me (according to fashion sizing) is extra large and double digits. But my head measures 22 inches which puts it in the small size range. Believe it or not, sizing for helmets goes from XXS all the way to 5XL. I am only a smidge over the XS size, so I tried on both the XS and the S repeatedly until I was certain that I wanted to stick with the S. She's an experienced rider who also is a small for helmets but prefers an XS for added snugness, so she wanted me to be certain. The XS was just a bit too snug for my liking, though, I finally decided. I also left with another HD t-shirt for my collection and another poker chip (which didn't do anything for my desire to get one from every state since I already have an TN one from Nashville, but I really liked the chip and the Johnson City HD store).

No trip is complete without sampling local fare. We ate some great food while we were there. Since we arrived kind of late and many restaurants still weren't open to dine-in, we opted to eat at the Waffle House that was right next to the Hampton where we stayed. We'd never eaten in one before. I chose to actually try one of their waffles. It was pretty good, actually. We also ate at Aubrey's, a great restaurant serving American food as well as pasta which is what we ate; Southern Craft, where we sat at the bar and had some delicious libations as well as yummy barbecue; and Main Street Pizza, where the spaghetti and sausage meatballs was to-die-for delicious. At each place, we had incredibly friendly and helpful waiters who added to the dining (and drinking experience). 

       

 

       

Just a few miles west of Johnson City is the town of Jonesborough, which is the oldest town in Tennessee and home to the International Storytelling Center. The events for that are held in the fall, I believe, but the main street is quite historic and full of interesting places like the Christopher Taylor house where Andrew Jackson lived for a year. We ate at the Main Street Cafe, strolled through the town a bit, but a couple of the stores I would have liked to have visited were closed, so we left empty-handed but enjoyed the time spent there.

   

        

I'll leave you with one last selfie taken from Winged Deer Park in Johnson City. Hopefully, I'll be returning to the town or area in a year or so, either to visit or to live.